The campaign is really getting down and dirty. McCain/Palin have been accused of appealing to the racist tendencies of their supporters. They deny using buzz words or code words but it does seem a little suspicious that Palin has developed a stutter in southern states in referring to her plank-mate as John McCai-Cai-Cain.

It seems a bit ingenuous for Palin to describe Obama as “pallin’ around” with a terrorist who hates America so much he wants to bomb it when she is “sleepin’ around” with a man who hates America so much he wants his entire state to secede from it.

According to ancestry.com, if childless George Washington had become our king instead of president, the crown would have passed to his brother and our current monarch would be a guy in Texas named Paul Emory Washington. Mr. Washington could not be reached for comment – he’s busy scouring the Constitution for a loophole.

Researchers at Japan’s Osaka University have created a life-like robot that looks and acts like a 5-year-old girl. Now they’re searching for a market for a robot that screams every time it sees Hannah Montana.

According to a new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, if a group is without a leader, a narcissist — self-centered, exaggerated talents, lacking in empathy — will emerge to take charge. Sarah Palin is right — everybody IS qualified to be president.

Cardiologist Dr. Jerome E. Granato, the author of “Living with Coronary Disease ,” warns that people watching the stock market drop could suffer a heart attack from “ticker shock.” If you see someone going into ticker shock, the way to keep him from choking on his tongue is to hold it down with a credit card.

In Munich, a German farmer who received the world’s first complete double arm transplant three months ago can now perform simple task like opening doors and operating light switches. Doctors say he’s still a long way from his dream of strangling the cow that pushed him into the thresher.

A federal court ruled that a man who towed around a 25-foot decommissioned missile emblazoned with “Viva Viagra” infringed on a trademark held by Pfizer Inc. The rocket had a warning which read, “If erection lasts more than four hours, call your doctor and say, “Houston, we have a problem.”

A woman in Washington state says she accidentally put a shotgun shell on a hot cast-iron stove and the stove shot her in the leg. She wanted to throw the stove out but its right to bear arms is protected by the NRA – the National Range Association.

Hugh Hefner has finally admitted that he and his girlfriend Holly Madison, one of E!’s “The Girls Next Door,” have broken up and he’s been “down in the dumps” about the split. Hef is so down on women, he picked up a copy of Playboy and found out it contained articles.

Foo Fighters has asked John McCain to stop using their song “My Hero” in his campaign. McCain refused, saying if the Foos were such fighters, how come they’re not in Iraq?

Three U.S.-based scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for using a fluorescent green protein from jellyfish to track individual cells in the body. They’re hoping the honor will put an end to the other scientists at the lab calling them “Spongebob Glowpants.”

According to the Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Food, scientists in Japan have identified four proteins in chicken legs that may help control high blood pressure. I’ll believe it the day you can walk into KFC and order a bucket of “extra-healthy.”

On the 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII, Pope Benedict XVI said Pius deserved to be declared a saint and denied accusations he didn’t do enough to stop the Holocaust. He’s hoping to convince Jews by showing them a recently-discovered bagel with Pius’ face miraculously toasted on it.

A report by the National Enquirer that teen actress Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant with her second child is being refuted by other sources. A disappointed bill O’Reilly was forced to waste an entire show to real news.

Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos will be jailed for three months in the Dominican Republic while awaiting trial for a hit-and-run accident. Is there any way when the U.S. tries AIG executives for fraud we can have THEIR trial moved to the Dominican Republic?

The United States is doing poorly in math education, according to the latest study. But you have to take these results with a grain of salt. It turns out that many of the purported schoolchildren who took the test were actually bankers in disguise.

Speaking at the Cuban-American celebrations for the independence of Cuba, President Bush called the Caribbean island “that floating prison fronting our free coasts.” Now that may be so, but they sure can sing, sing.

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A note to readers: This post is the last for the Laugh Lines blog, started three years ago as a place for amusing stuff on the Web, curated to the sensibilities of Times readers. The blog’s end is a function of the reality of limited resources in a medium where any number of worthy experiments are possible, but all can’t be sustained.Rest assured, our regular, outside feed of editorial cartoons will remain available via links on The New York Times home page and the Crosswords & Games and Week in Review section fronts. Thanks to our loyal readers and contributors, and regrets. — The editorsRead more…

Monologue | Thursday night on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” on NBC: We have some wonderful news. BP announced it successfully capped the oil leak. The oil leak has stopped. I am so glad they were able to nip this thing in the bud.Read more…

Monologue | Thursday night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” on CBS: You remember Bill Clinton? Bill and Hillary went out and bought a brand-new house in upstate New York. He’s still keeping the old place to use as a bachelor pad. Read more…